Monday, October 05, 2009

And The Lord Sayeth: Dang! Knew I Should Have Copyrighted That Stuff.

We're coming to you today from the You Knew It Had To Happen Department here in the marbled halls of IM Central. YKIHTH is a division of the Removal Of Inconvenient Truths Corporation, a wholly owned subsidy My God Says What I Want Him To Say, Inc.

See, for a long time now conservative christians have been in a sort of a bind considering most of their beliefs ran completely counter to what Jesus taught. Jesus didn't think poor people were poor because they were lazy, or worse, brown or black, he wasn't a big fan of war, and didn't really start the prosperity gospel, especially the part that says it's the preachers of the prosperity gospel who are supposed to prosper.

At the very minimum this occasioned some awkward silences when conservative christians, who claim to have a Jesus' private number, are asked to explain signs like this, and this, rather confusingly, this one (Question: Catholics are so bad they rate their own list, or did you just run out of room on the first one?).

Well, no more:
Socialistic terminology permeates English translations of the Bible, without justification. This improperly encourages the "social justice" movement among Christians.
Darn straight. If there's one thing Jesus was consistently against, it was social justice. We mean, check out this page. Look at all those quotes that were obviously written by Marxists. James 2:1-9: Love your neighbor, treat all with dignity? Will do, comrade. Peter 4:7-11: Put your gifts at the service of others? Does this look like an ACORN office? Phillipians 2:1-11: Unity and service; be a servant like Christ. Criminee, it's the bible, not Chairman Jesus' Little Red Book.
Liberal bias has become the single biggest distortion in modern Bible translations. There are three sources of errors in conveying biblical meaning: lack of precision in the original language, such as terms underdeveloped to convey new concepts of Christianity,
OK, so we're thinking one of those "new concepts" is hate people who aren't like you?
Lack of precision in modern language; translation bias in converting the original language to the modern one. Of these three sources of errors, the last introduces the largest error, and the biggest component of that error is liberal bias. Large reductions in this error can be attained simply by retranslating the KJV into modern English.
We get it. King James authorized a new translation of the bible to bring it into line with the teachings of the Church of England because Jesus would have totally been a Welshman if there had been a Wales back then.
As of 2009, there is no fully conservative translation of the Bible which satisfies the following ten guidelines:

Framework against Liberal Bias: providing a strong framework that enables a thought-for-thought translation without corruption by liberal bias.
Right. This makes a lot of sense you know, because when King James convened the Hampton Court Conference in 1604 that created the King James Version he was responding to concerns voiced by the Puritans, a notoriously liberal group.
Not Emasculated: avoiding unisex, "gender inclusive" language, and other modern emasculation of Christianity.
Darn straight. Jesus knew how to treat the wimmens. Just ask Theodora. Also, who needs that "inclusive" thing? Not Jesus that's for sure.
Not Dumbed Down: not dumbing down the reading level, or diluting the intellectual force and logic of Christianity; the NIV is written at only the 7th grade level.
Umm...might want to rethink that one given your audience. Just saying.
Utilize Powerful Conservative Terms: using powerful new conservative terms as they develop; defective translations use the word "comrade" three times as often as "volunteer"; similarly, updating words which have a change in meaning, such as "word", "peace", and "miracle".
According to the Modern Liberal to Conservative Dictionary, "word" now means whatever we need it to mean so we can get around those inconvenient descriptors like racist, homophobe, intolerant and such, "peace" means bomb the snot out of brown people, and "miracle" is us getting the spelling right on one of our protest signs.
Combat Harmful Addiction: combating addiction by using modern terms for it, such as "gamble" rather than "cast lots";
Better clear that one with Bill Bennett first.
Using modern political terms, such as "register" rather than "enroll" for the census.
Don't you mean "avoid"?
Accept the Logic of Hell: applying logic with its full force and effect, as in not denying or downplaying the very real existence of Hell or the Devil.
Or, as Aristotle would have put it:
I believe in hell
What I believe is true
Therefore hell exists
Express Free Market Parables; explaining the numerous economic parables with their full free-market meaning.
The problem here is that whole moneychangers in the temple thing, you know? Totally misrepresented those guys.
Exclude Later-Inserted Liberal Passages: excluding the later-inserted liberal passages that are not authentic, such as the adulteress story
Definitely. That's the one where Jesus supposedly says let he who is without sin among you cast the first stone. We know Jesus didn't really intend for us not to meddle in your life.
Credit Open-Mindedness of Disciples: crediting open-mindedness, often found in youngsters like the eyewitnesses Mark and John, the authors of two of the Gospels.
Yeah. We have no idea what that means, especially since the goal of the whole project is the opposite of open mindedness. Oh, wait a minute, maybe this is an example of the new definition of "word." "Open" really means "closed."
Prefer Conciseness over Liberal Wordiness: preferring conciseness to the liberal style of high word-to-substance ratio; avoid compound negatives and unnecessary ambiguities; prefer concise, consistent use of the word "Lord" rather than "Jehovah" or "Yahweh" or "Lord God."
Well, it's easy to be concise when whatever you write down means just what you want it to mean. No ambiguities like the ones people deal with because the bible has gone through, oh, we don't know, couple thousand versions.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well this version of the Bible will become a living reminder to this age of stupidity that was dominated almost exclusively by Inbred Snake Handlers who hated Wimmins and Brown Peoples.

If only there were a way to give them even more rope.

Anonymous said...

Jesus , Mary & Joseph! (and I say that "loosely")
Roman Catholicism and all "going to HELL!"
"GOD HATES FAGS!" (that was original)
The best ,of course ,is that they all had to hire Democrats for the spelling.

Anonymous said...

Of course there were women priests before the 12th century! People were not so insecure or so desperately hung up on sexes to point at a penis and say: "Oooooo. You rule, boy!"
They used everyone possible to fight wars, children included.
"If you have a schlong come to the front of the line and pick up your bread." ?
How silly.

Anonymous said...

"Authority" and values" seems to be key words mobilizing the Conservative, extreme right wings.
This is why they chose a dope like Bush who rules with Biblical "pop-up books" and no real intelligence. This is also why they all love the military and the discipline. It gets you there. And it also means "STFU".
Everything is "taken care of" in the higher scheme of things and never "a problem" because "You lie!" and "Get a brain, moron!" distracts even the most diligent of Democratic thinkers into a "WTF?"

Anonymous said...

You did not take the day off yesterday, Ironicus Maximus!
You wrote this!
:)

YogaforCynics said...

Hopefully they'll also get rid of all those pesky anti-capitalist regulations concerning selling daughters into slavery.

James said...

Unbelievable. I followed the link to conservapedia and read the info there. The rabbit hole goes pretty deep on that side of the web.

Anonymous said...

Give them Sarah Palin!
The Republicans will become extinct!